Here are some tools to expand rural access to health care

Rural counties face widespread health-care disparities, and the pandemic has exacerbated them, but states have many tools at their disposal that can help alleviate those disparities, Thomas Waldrop and Emily Gee write for the Center for American Progress.

Waldrop and Gee outline the issue in stark detail: "While only 14 percent of Americans—almost 46 million people—live in rural areas, rural communities represent nearly two-thirds of primary care health professional shortage areas (HPSAs) in the country. This amounts to more than 4,100 primary care HPSAs in rural areas. A 2018 report by Pew Research Center found that the average time to drive to a hospital in rural communities was 17 minutes, nearly 65 percent longer than the average drive in urban communities. The coronavirus crisis highlighted this gap in access: These long-standing disparities have resulted in clear health differences between more rural and more urban areas, increasing rural residents’ risk of Covid-19 and severe illness from it."

The report breaks down issues causing health-care disparities, such as barriers to practice for physicians, and notes ways states can address those issues, such as increasing telehealth access. Read more here.